Corrosion is one of the primary preventable causes of failure in refinery, petrochemical, and other pipelines. Cracking is also possible. Defects in pipelines have various shapes and locations. The defects, therefore, may be detectable for some guided waves at particular frequencies but non-detectable for other particular frequencies.
The Magnetic-Flux Leakage (MFL) method is currently the dominant technology for the in-line inspection (ILI) of transmission pipeline. Quite often, however, it is not possible to use ILI. As a consequence, Long Range Ultrasonic Guided Wave Inspection Systems have been developed. These systems have the capability of finding defects that range between 3% to 9% cross sectional area (CSA). These Long Range Ultrasonic Guided Wave Inspection Systems are currently difficult to use and somewhat time consuming as well. There is a need, therefore, to provide a cost efficient system and method that will identify defects in structures.